The detailed and thought-provoking essays in this collection started life as contributions to a colloquium at the University of Kent in 2004. Seven chapters have a geographical focus on Kent, whilst the eighth explores the Low Countries. To these are added an introduction by the editors, and an insightful afterword by Alexandra Walsham.

The chronological span of this volume is particularly useful, demonstrating the value of avoiding clear cut-off points between the late medieval and early modern periods. As the idea of one decisive Reformation has lost credibility, scholars now discern a series of protracted and complex transitions in religious practice and belief. The essays in this collection further complicate this picture: neither the traditional story of the English Reformation nor the more recent revisionist approaches are seen to be satisfactory. Rather, a number of approaches are suggested for dealing with a complex interplay of change and continuity.

The studies presented here are the product of extensive research with a variety of sources. From Robert Lutton's study of the testamentary evidence of the communities of Tenterden and Cranbrook, to the printed and manuscript books explored by Elizabeth Salter and Emily Richards, to Clare Bartram's examination of late sixteenth-century funerary monuments, they demonstrate how diverse evidence can offer new insight into past religious practices. A range of disciplinary approaches is applied to this material: whilst not rejecting a quantitative approach if conducted critically, the essays also demonstrate the richness and variety of conceptual frameworks within which scholars of religion now work. The contributors, for instance, display a critical attention to language, from the linguistic concerns of Emily Richards's essay, to a more general sensitivity to the problematic nature of key terms such as ‘pieties’.

The authors refuse simplistic explanations for change, or indeed continuity, in religious practice. They provide ample evidence of the complicated ways in which change or evolution occurred in religious behaviour. Emily Richards underlines the transitions in meaning that could take place between authors (contemplative monks) and readers (laity) in very different milieus; Robert Lutton suggests that the devotion to the passion of Christ could serve existing and continuing concerns whilst also having resonance for those of a more humanist or evangelical tendency; Anne-Marie Spetjens highlights changes that took place within particular pious organisations over time. In her study of hospitals and charitable giving, Sheila Sweetinburgh argues that the vocabulary of giving, which remained fairly static throughout the sixteenth century, could be understood in Protestant terms. In this sense, using a ‘traditional’ vocabulary of charity could help to advance the Protestant faith. Overall, the complexity these essays uncover within lay devotion promotes a more sophisticated explanation of how ‘the Reformation’ was experienced in the localities. There is a welcome reminder not only of the variety and flexibility in ‘traditional’ religion, but also the possible tensions and changes in late medieval religious devotions. This has implications for our approach to or understanding of the responses of individuals and groups to new ideas and ‘official’ changes.

The focus on discerning lay pious practices is valuable although, almost inevitably, the religious and clergy are rather overlooked. This is partly due to a conscious effort not to confine pieties to their parish context, or assume that the parish was the dominant factor in the religious practices of the majority (p. 1). Thus clerical protagonists or antagonists have their place in Paula Simpson's study of resistance to the tithe in the diocese of Canterbury, and in G. M. Draper's discussion of patterns of educational provision, but they do not take centre stage. The religious life, and its interactions with the secular, is considered more directly in Emily Richards's insightful piece on Carthusian writings aimed at a lay audience. Here she explores the paradoxes inherent in texts written by those engaged in a contemplative life for those in and of the world. Carthusian writers adopted strategies of presentation wherein the dialogic, non-referential language in which their devotion was experienced was not lost when translated into the ‘authoritative’, ‘non-contemplative’ language of the secular world. Richards also raises the question of how lay readers received or engaged with such texts, underlining a possible divergence between the intentions of author and reader.

This volume demonstrates how studies with a ‘local’ focus need not be parochial or insular. A convincing case is made for the significance of integrating local factors – physical, geographical, cultural, familial, etc – into our understanding of individual and group practices. Andrew Hope's excellent essay on two female martyrs, Elizabeth Barton and Joan Boucher, demonstrates the importance of the local and immediate in informing their behaviour which had a ‘national’ impact. Hope's re-examination of evidence relating to Joan Boucher suggests that her links to recent Catholic martyrs, including Elizabeth Barton, rather than any assumed Lollard connections, impacted on her stand as an anti-Trinitarian martyr. Here, and elsewhere in the volume, a sensitivity to immediate and local circumstances complements engagement with wider issues of religious experience or attitudes. Paula Simpson's study of resistance to tithes, for instance, demonstrates the fruitfulness of a comparative approach to such material, whilst Clare Bartram's contextual study of the funerary monument of Sir Roger Manwood challenges recent work on Puritan cultures of remembrance.

Whilst this volume is to be commended for successfully demonstrating the wider relevance of insights gained by studies with a ‘local’ focus, more consideration could have been given to wider influences on the locality. Alex Walsham's afterword suggests the importance of integrating European influences into the study of local pieties. A case is made in the introduction for the inclusion of an essay on the Low Countries, an essay which is both highly informative and thought-provoking. Individually however, the articles do not look outside themselves to a European context, and the examination of England and the Low Countries remains discrete.

Rather than provide glib or easy answers to the questions it raises, Pieties in transition leaves the reader with plenty of food for thought.